Generally speaking, for a semiconductor, the temperature dependence of excitonic emission corresponds to that of its band gap. However, an anomalous behavior is exhibited by the excitonic luminescence of diamond where as the temperature increases (from 10 to 300 K), its indirect exciton luminescence peak displays a spectral-distinguishable blue shift, whereas the indirect band-gap absorption shows a weak red shift. According to experimental high-resolution deep-ultraviolet spectra and theoretical analysis, the weak red shift of its indirect band gap is ascribed to its large Debye temperature (ΘD ≈ 2220 K), which makes the lattice constant change comparatively little in a large temperature range, so the change of its band gap is relatively small; in this case, as the temperature rises, the thermal population of valence-band holes that moves to a high-energy state far away from the Fermi surface contributes to the macroscopic blue shift of its excitonic emission.
Keywords: blue shift; diamond; excitonic luminescence.